Street Fighter 6

EVO 2023 Lineup
February 22nd, 2023

We got games! The Evolution lineup has been confirmed.

First, the good news: Street Fighter 6 will be the headlining game for the event, and by the time Evolution rolls around people will have been playing the game for long enough that some optimal top-level strats are beginning to form. While there will be plenty of tournaments between launch and Evo, this is where everyone always shows up to play.

Second, the awesome news: IT'S MAHVEL BABY! Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is coming back to the main event. Hey Justin Wong, get in the car, it's time to push buttons.

Third, the backlash: The prize pool is weird, with only the top 6 players receiving a payout instead of the usual top 8. This likely means that finals day will be top 6, possibly to expedite the process as FGC tournaments really like going over schedule, but regardless of their justifications this is going to cause an uproar.

As Evolution is owned by Sony© now (sponsored by Chipotle©, When The FGC Isn't Spicy Enough Already™), the games will be played on the Playstation 5. Historically, the Playstation version of Street Fighter has been the worst by far in terms of input lag and frame rate issues, but they got their act together towards the end of Street Fighter V's lifespan and nearly achieved PC parity. Hopefully they've figured things out by now.

Lastly, Smash is notable in its absence once again, but this time around it was expected. Nintendo does not want to appear at a Sony event to begin with, and this year they're laying extra low after the Panda controversy.

Evolution 2023 will be played on August 4th-6th in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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One Million Dollars
February 20th, 2023

Capcom announced during the SF5 finals that Capcom Cup 10 will have a prize pool of over $2,000,000, with a grand prize of $1,000,000 to the winner. The announcement was subsequently added to the official Street Fighter Twitter account.

      Update: Capcom released the announcement video shown at the event. Twitter | YouTube

This is the biggest prize pool in FGC history, no doubt deliberate as Capcom appear to be going all out on Street Fighter 6. Personally, I think they're spending their marketing budget very wisely here; up until now, the official media has mostly been about the new game modes and the virtual arcade—things which casual fans would be more interested in—and now they've capped it off with a big announcement for the competitive scene.

Well, hell—I'm excited. Everyone will be playing their asses off this year because this kind of prize pool is rare.



The last few events of Capcom Cup 9 were played on PC instead of the Playstation; lower input delay, higher refresh rate, and greater access to third party controllers meant the move to PC had been highly requested by the playerbase for some time. Capcom have not yet officially announced whether Capcom Cup 10 will also be played on PC, but it likely will be so long as the PC version is good—which is almost a certainty.

PC has always had the superior version of Street Fighter ever since Street Fighter IV (input delay being a major factor there), but it always had fewer players than the console versions. For Street Fighter 6 however, cross-platform play has been confirmed, and many competitors will likely pick up the game on PC for all of its various improvements.

Street Fighter 6 officially releases in June, and unofficially released a few months ago when the PC beta version was cracked. With this insane prize pool on the table, everyone is going to definitely not be playing and practising on the cracked beta for the foreseeable future.

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Street Fighter 6: Information, Release Date
February 17th, 2023
Edit: This news article is now obsolete; all information has been added to the Features and Player's Guide sections. Preserved for posterity, but it's just a duplicate of stuff you can read elsewhere on the page.
+ Show Spoiler [Obsolete news article] +

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Hello Team Liquid, and welcome back to Street Fighter
February 17th, 2023

Some of you may remember me as the maintainer of the Street Fighter IV thread back in the day. Since I'm currently curious about SF6, I decided to embark upon Part Deux.

If I end up enjoying the game and the competitive scene, I'll update this thread like I did the old one. However, readers should note that I played and watched zero Street Fighter 5 over the years. Thus, I ask for your understanding if I end up saying something like Fujimura looks like a promising newbie. It's not because I'm an asshole, it's because I'm stupid.

General

The biggest difference between SF5 and SF6 is that footsies are back. Normal buttons have much longer recovery now, which means they are once again possible to whiff-punish for skilled players. In that regard the game is more reminscent of Street Fighter IV than Street Fighter V.

Archetypes

Shotos are going to be very strong. Shoryukens are stronger than they were in SF5, and their normals have longer reach (and they benefit from the ability to whiff punish in this game more than most archetypes), but the most important buff is that fireballs are dangerous again. SF5 had so many ways to get around projectiles, whereas in SF6 you have to patiently block and parry and slowly advance until you find an opening. Just being able to reliably poke from mid-screen is a big buff to shotos.

Rushdown characters look insanely good, especially with the new drive gauge tools. The corner is even scarier than ever because a successful Drive Impact will actually crumple an opponent who's in the corner, and the rushdown characters have fantastic corner carry tools. Most of them have special mix-ups with EX moves too; Cammy's EX Spin Knuckle is a very fast cross-up that she can combo out of.

Grapplers might be a problem. The new drive gauge tools means they likely have an easier time getting close than ever before, and some people are actually concerned about the game balance. Command grabs deal a ton of damage, but it's worth noting that none of them get oki after landing one. This means that Zangief has to spend meter to Drive Rush in if he wants to apply pressure after SPD.

Zoners face a new challenge: with the new drive gauge abilities, everyone has additional tools which lets them get through fireballs more easily. To compensate, zoners are strong. Guile was considered the strongest character in the beta for a while, and was occasionally placed a tier above everybody else.

Some specific character notes:

Ryu and Ken return, and both have received updates. Ken has a high-damage side-switch combo, and Ryu has increased mobility and by far the highest damage output in the game so far. Their neutral game is strong as well with most of their buttons reaching further than their SF5 counterparts, and shoryukens look better than ever. Ryu may in fact be in busted tier according to beta testers, which should make Daigo quite happy.

Juri is now a mix of her SF4 and SF5 incarnations, and she has most of the moves from both (i.e. divekick from SF4, slow ground projectile from SF5). She does not have her negative edge fireballs from SF4, nor her counter-attack, but she has practically everything else. She has insane movement speed and her dash speed is ridiculous. She was the strongest neutral-based character in the beta, and her rushdown is still crazy when she pops Feng Shui Engine (level 2 super).

Cammy is back and looks amazing, which you know if you've seen the stretch heard round the world. Her speed and mix-up game is actually kind of scary in this game. For a start, her Hooligan has so many different finishers now; she can overhead, grab, or fast-fall into a crouching low attack. As I said above her EX Spin Knuckle is a very fast cross-up that goes through opponents, and she can hit-confirm it into a max-damage combo or super.

Chun-Li is a pseudo-stance character now. She can go into a "neutral stance" which gives her access to different attacks, which complements her already unfair range of normals. She remains the queen of long-range pokes, but she's a very technical character so not a lot of people were running with her in the beta.

Luke is nowhere near as broken as he was in SF5. In fact, he just seems like a solid character in SF6, as his bullshit doesn't transcend the game mechanics. It's pretty clear that he was made with SF6 in mind, and that Capcom made him overpowered in SF5 so that people would advertise him prior to SF6.

Some classic character movesets are back, but in the body of different characters:

Guy has been replaced by Kimberly, a student of Bushinryu Ninjitsu whose personality is the complete opposite of the taciturn (and really quite dull) Final Fight character. Not only is she considered a very strong character, but she has so much awesome bullshit available which makes it hard for her opponents to account for everything. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Kimberly's particular brand of teleport bullshit, and I intend to play her a lot during the first week.

T. Hawk has been replaced by his daughter, Lily. She has inherited most of his moveset, but puts her own spin on it. She's a fast and agile character with some scary command grabs.

I could go on, but this OP is long enough as it is!

Which input device should I choose?
Gamepad, Arcade Stick, Leverless, or keyboard

Luffy won Evolution with a Playstation 1 controller.

Read that sentence until you inoculate yourself against any inherent bias, because the answer genuinely is: "Whatever you feel comfortable with." That doesn't mean sticking with a controller you hate; it means that you won't level up your game by swapping over to the hot new controller you see advertised on Twitter.

The only point at which getting a Leverless over an Arcade Stick might matter is at the top levels of play, where very small frame advantages can make a difference. Even then, many old pros are sticking with their arcade sticks because the difference is slight, joysticks are more comfortable to them, and the adjustment period would be painful.

Here are some brief pros and cons to each input type.


Gamepad
      + Lightweight
      + Cheap, easy to replace
      + Fast movement
      + Precise movement
      + Great for grapplers; lightning quick half-circle and 360* motions
      - Awkward button layout
      - Different action on bumpers/triggers, makes some links harder
      - Prone to breaking, especially the d-pad

This is probably the best device for grapplers because circle inputs are easy and consistent, but it's good across the board. It offers the fastest dash, and very fast movement overall. It's also the cheapest solution. Again: Luffy won Evolution with a Playstation 1 controller.

Besides, Street Fighter 6 comes with two alternate controller modes that make it easier to perform special moves, and both are designed specifically with gamepad in mind. The folks at Capcom know that gamepads are the most common input device, and they're trying to make them as convenient as possible in the new title.

The downside to gamepads is having a button layout that may make playing certain high-execution characters harder, but this is an inconvenience, not an impossible problem. Wolfkrone played C. Viper with a gamepad, and when he switched to using an arcade stick he ended up slumping until he swapped back.

Almost everyone has a gamepad somewhere, and that's what I would recommend if you're just starting out with fighting games. Just make sure it has a good D-Pad that doesn't hurt your thumb. For instance, the Xbox 360 controller has a famously shitty D-Pad, but all the other modern controllers (PS4/5, Xbox One) are fine.

A subcategory of gamepads is the 6-button gamepads specifically for fighting games. These were popular for a time, but have since fallen off. If you're curious, I've heard good things about the HORI Fighting Commander PS4/PC Controller, but I've never tried one of these myself.


Arcade Stick
      + Most fun to use according to most players
      + Incredibly intuitive; fighting games were made with arcade stick in mind
      + Easy circle motions
      + Durable
      + Same action on all buttons
      - Often expensive
      - Slowest movement changes
      - Least precise, more likely to flub special move inputs

Arcade sticks are good across all fighting games, especially old titles that don't have input shortcuts. The tactile feel is very satisfying, it's intuitive to use, and a few moves will actually be easier with an arcade stick. It's considered the optimal controller for the King of Fighters series, where you have to do a lot of quarter-circle motion shenanigans which are much harder to do on a leverless controller.

It's also a fun controller to use while playing classic arcade games; if you use emulators or play fighting games on older consoles, an arcade stick is usually the way to go.

Arcade sticks also have a convenient button layout with a nice place to rest your hand; no need to mess with weird shoulder buttons or unusual claw grips like you do on gamepad. Also, while this is less of a thing these days: if you ever go to an actual arcade, all of the fighting games there will use this control scheme.

The actual movement input is technically the slowest of the current input alternatives; moving a joystick from one position to another will take an extra couple of frames because of the required travel distance. However, this difference is insignificant unless you are competing at the top level of play. Even then, many pros are sticking with their arcade sticks because the difference is so slight, sticks are more comfortable to them, and the adjustment period would be painful.


Leverless
      + Instant access to any directional movement
      + Fastest directional change by far
      + Precise and predictable controls
      + Instantly release charge moves
      + Access to many input shortcuts
      + Optimal for charge characters
      - Very unintuitive, and likely much harder to learn
      - Dashing is harder with your ring finger button
      - Very awkward for 180* and 360* (half-circle and full-circle) motions
      - Only good for some modern fighting games, AND NOTHING ELSE

A leverless controller is a glorified keyboard device. Instead of a joystick, it has four digital buttons representing left, down, right, and up/jump. Although Hitbox is the name of a company who makes these devices, the name hitbox has sometimes been used as a synonym, but the hot new term is leverless.

Its primary advantage is that it offers the fastest possible movement input, which can offer some frame advantages at the highest levels of play. It's also the best device for charge characters because it lets you perform 1-frame Sonic Booms or Flash Kicks, and some supers are actually easier to perform. Leverless is overall the most precise controller; once you get used to it, you will rarely flub an input.

However, despite all of the potential advantages of going leverless, this only applies to modern fighting games where the games were designed with these input devices in mind.

The thing is, leverless controllers are awkward to use—and sometimes outright banned—in many older games. In many cases it's more likely to frustrate than to help. Most early fighting games were designed with joysticks or gamepads in mind, meaning they don't know how to deal with multiple simultaneous directional inputs. This can either break the game in your favour (UMvC3, banned), or make it much harder to pull off special moves consistently.

Leverless controllers are also much harder to use with grappler characters; the button sequence to do a 360* motion is strange and awkward, especially if you have to do it twice in a row to output a super move. For the same reason, they're harder to use in the King of Fighters franchise where you have to perform a lot of quarter-circle motions. You have to piano the buttons in a precise and specific way to even get a 360* motion to come out, and this can be incredibly infuriating.

This is also the device which will take the longest time getting used to. The bottom thumb button being jump will throw you for a loop for a while, unless you're a big PC gamer who's been using WASD/Space for movement and jumping in PC platformers. On the whole, it's very unintuitive.

A leverless controller is essentially a tool for playing modern Street Fighter and Tekken titles, and nothing else. In older fighting games it can be really awkward to use, if it's even allowed. An arcade stick has the advantage of being fun and intuitive across a larger selection of games and genres, and a gamepad is ubiquitous, while a leverless controller will probably only be your Street Fighter controller.

But if you genuinely intend to go pro, I would still recommend one. There's a reason Daigo and Tokido have already swapped.


Keyboard
      + Same as Leverless (above), except with the additional caveats:
      - Can't slide a finger across multiple buttons
      - Rarely usable in tournaments

I play on keyboard, and have done ever since SSF4:AE. It can be considered a "Poverty Leverless" where you get the same advantages of fast movement inputs and precision, but without the ability to slide a finger across a row of buttons (a technique that hasn't really been relevant since Street Fighter 4).

Apart from that, keyboard has most of the advantages of a leverless controller, and is therefore probably optimal. A few PC players have actually turned up to tournaments with their keyboards; that's how viable it truly is. I personally prefer it to a gamepad, and I think it's much more precise.

If you're a PC gamer with no peripherals, and you're interested in Street Fighter, strongly consider using a keyboard. It's actually good, and a great button layout will make it easy to transition to leverless later if you start going to tournaments.

Consider this movement scheme:

A S D Space = Left, Down, Right, and Jump
U I O = Low, Medium, High Punch
H J K = Low, Medium, High Kick

You can effortlessly press UIO or HJK at the same time to output supers, you can do U+H for throws, and you can press space bar with either of your thumbs. This is especially useful for charge characters because you can press jump + punch simultaneously with your right hand, perfect for stuff like Guile's Flash Kick.

NOTE: Some cheap keyboards prevent you from pressing too many keys at once. In the most egregious cases, this can actually prevent you from performing super moves. Most mechanical keyboards do not have this limitation, nor do most gaming keyboards.

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Here is Justin Wong, Maximilian, and Matt McMuscles talking about Hitboxes and what they can do compared with other input devices. The entire video is worth a watch, but go to the timestamp for Hitbox-specific comparisons.



And here is Brian F talking for 33 minutes on the topic if you have some time that needs killing.

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I have one last anecdote.

Around the original release of Street Fighter 4, I was a gamepad user. I was practising C. Viper, and I was convinced that some of the high-level tech and execution was damn near impossible on pad. I couldn't afford an arcade stick, so I strongly considered switching back to Cammy.

Then Wolfkrone showed up to a tournament with his gamepad in hand, and his C. Viper just shat all over everybody without dropping a combo. I was forced to acknowledge that I was actually just dogshit.

Some things are easier on certain controllers, and some things are harder.

But Luffy won Evolution with a Playstation 1 controller.

You'll be fine.

New to fighting games

This is the most important advice I can give you: Pick whoever you really like the look of.

When you're starting out, the most important thing is to find a bad-ass character who has a bunch of cool shit you want to pull off in a game. I take Street Fighter semi-seriously, but I still subscribe to this overall philosophy: at the end of the day, all I want to do is make awesome shit happen on the screen, the kind that makes you go "Fucking hell, did you see that? I am a titan that walks like a man!"

Cool shit > character tiers, always.

If you still desperately want a character recommendation, maybe look into Luke. He is probably the most straightforwardly good character. His fireball is super fast, his moves have good priority and do good damage, and it's easy to combo off of his standard punches. He's also the main protagonist of the Street Fighter 6 storyline.

People just have Luke fatigue right now because he was so good in Street Fighter V that they're sick of seeing him. He's not nearly as overpowering in Street Fighter 6, but Capcom are pushing him as a good starter for a reason.


Zone them out with projectiles

Enjoy keeping people away with fireballs and sonic booms? Zoners have been really good in Street Fighter since the start of the franchise, and it can be an absolute nightmare to play against a good one.

Guile was considered the top dog of the open beta test by a lot of players. His keep-away game is incredible; Sonic Blade combines with Sonic Boom to create a two-hit projectile, his Flash Kick is a fantastic get off me move, and his normals have good range and high damage. In the right hands, he's going to be a problem.

We haven't been able to play him yet, but Dee Jay looks to be an incredibly solid zoner as well. His multiple projectiles have very short recovery time, and he can even fake throwing fireballs to cause his opponent to flinch. Yeah, Dee Jay has feints now. I'm a little scared.

Lastly, for the truly depraved there's the newcomer JP. His entire game plan is to fill the screen with bullshit. Pick JP if you want to win against your friends until they stop playing against you.


Aggressively pressure

You want Ken. Even if you end up maining someone else, Ken should be your first stop. His corner pressure is absolutely terrifying, and he has so many tools to carry you into the corner and keep you there.


Footsies please

Juri is an absolute beast at the neutral game. Her walk and dash speed is without peer, making her able to stay at her optimal range better than just about any other character. She's no longer the fireball zoner from Street Fighter IV—instead she's a mid-range beast who can suddenly play rushdown at will, especially when in her level 2 super Feng Shui Engine.

You should also consider Jamie. He's all about landing whiff-punishes and counter-hits and converting them into combos. He can be difficult to play due to his relatively short range, and his level-up mechanic forces players to memorize more combos than usual. Once he reaches level 4, however, he's probably the strongest character in the game.


I want to control the stage

Chun-Li is the goddess of the neutral game. Her normal attacks are so much better than everyone else that it's kind of crazy. Fighting her is like fighting a wall of long-range bullshit. That said, she's not only a charge character, but a stance character too—learning how her neutral stance increases her options is important at high levels of play.

You could also try Dhalsim. He circumvents the neutral game by having screen-reaching normal attacks, and is just plain weird. Everyone always hopes that Dhalsim is mid- or low-tier in every new Street Fighter game, because a high-tier Dhalsim is an absolute menace in tournaments.

Lastly, there's some debate about where Manon will sit on this list, but I think it'll be here. She's an unusual mix of having punishing long-range normal attacks and a command-grab focused approach to damage. Her height and reach means she'll be able to play a good neutral game, and if she wins that game she'll be able to put herself in command grab range. I am very interested in her development.


Hit them until they break

While no-one has gotten their hands on her yet, Marisa looks like she's going to be fun to play. Her punches make the screen rattle, and she does so much damn damage with every single strike. She even has a command grab for extra pressure. Ignore her goofy helmet hair and embrace death by snu-snu.


Grapplers please

You know where this is going. Zangief is the classic grappler character, a hard-hitting brawler with several armored moves and insane damage on his spinning piledriver. While he obviously has a lot of different grabs, he's also a scary brawler who can open his opponents up just the threat of being grabbed. And honestly, he looks scarier than ever.

That said, I'm personally more interested in Lily. She's the daughter of T. Hawk and has inherited a large portion of his moveset. She's fast and mobile, and while she's not a pure grappler she does have some scary command grabs.


Speed and mobility

Cammy. She has been an amazing rushdown character in almost every game in the series. Her divekick has cross-up potential, her spiral arrow crosses the screen in an instant, she can grab you in mid-air, her EX Spin Knuckle crosses up, and she's almost preposterously pretty in this game.

Personally though, I'm excited for Kimberly. While her teleport is punishable at high levels of play, it's going to be a monster in mid-tier. Your friends will hate you if you get good with her, but Kimberly is so infectiously happy that it's hard to stay mad.


Make them come to me

Sounds like E. Honda to me. He's always been very strong on defence because he has so many good options. He has a command grab, he has a lot of priority on his normals, and his headbutt is one of the best get-off-me moves in the game. Opponents will exhaust themselves trying to open him up, but you need a good head for defensive options.


BHAJHARKGLARGRHKL

Blanka.


I want a bit of everything

Ryu.

For people who want to play the quintessential protagonist. For people who want a character with the tools to handle every situation. For people who understand that the "boring basic archetype" character is the alligator who has remained physically unchanged for a hundred million years. For people who want the highest damage output in the entire game.

If you play Ryu, you will actually get better at fighting games as a whole. You will not get any gimmicks or crazy mix-ups or command grabs. In their place, you get a character with a damaging mobility skill, an invulnerable anti-air move, a projectile, good normals, and the highest potential damage output in the game if you learn how to hit-confirm.

Ryu is the perennial "I outplayed you" character, a character which thrives in the hands of anyone who is willing to learn fighting game fundamentals. And in this game, he's just really good.

As I'm writing this, it has been one hour since vSlash eSports announced that Emirates Showdown 2023 is happening on the launch day of Street Fighter 6.

I foresee absolutely no problems at all, and the tournament will be running smoothly from beginning to end.

On the off chance that I'm wrong, however, I would say everyone should tune in and watch the fireworks—if you can pull yourself away from the game for long enough to click the stream link.


Notable entrants:

      • TBA!

Schedule:

      • TBA!

Streams:

      • https://www.twitch.tv/vslashesports, probably

Headstomper is back!

The Scandinavian tournament was one of the many casualties of COVID, closing up shop after their 2020 tournament fell through. Nemo won the last Headstomper event back in 2019, and since then it's been years of misery and boredom. This was the premier Scandinavian tournament for fighting games; while DreamHack is absolutely huge, their fighting game output always felt like a side hustle, whereas Headstomper was FGC through and through.

Only a partial game list has been announced so far, but Street Figther 6 is confirmed. Also, free ice cream and popcorn.

With Headstomper taking place one week after the official launch of the game, everybody will still be learning the game by the time Headstomper comes around. Expect madness.


Notable entrants:

      • EndingWalker
      • Mister Crimson
      • TBA!

Schedule:

      • TBA!

Streams:

      • TBA!

BAM is part of the Tekken World Tour, and Tekken is always the main course at this event, but Street Fighter 6 will have a secondary presence. Last year they held a Street Fighter V side tournament, and it saw a decent amount of attention from local Australian players.

It's hard to say whether any international players will fly in for this event, especially since the tournament will be competing with Headstomper for attention. Still, it should be fun to see how the local Australian scene is coming along.

I'll add more details as we get closer to the tournament date!


Notable entrants:

      • TBA!

Schedule:

      • TBA!

Streams:

      • TBA!

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Twitter Announcement: REV Major
Website

REV Major is a Tekken World Tour tournament, but it had a SF5 side tournament last year. This is only here as a reminder/placeholder to look it up later when there are more details.

Bonchan Biography

King of Sagat, winner of Evolution, and a personal favourite of mine, Masato Takahashi is the second best player never to have won a Capcom Cup. He is an impeccable defensive master and zoner, more comfortable in the corner than most players are in the middle of the stage. His legacy spans well over a decade, with a large number of impressive 1st place finishes where he ran through a gauntlet of every known player you can imagine.

He is also one of the few Japanese gods to focus exclusively on a single franchise: Street Fighter.

Representing Sagat for most of his career, Bonchan was a somewhat inconsistent monster: he would demolish Tokido 3-1 to win Red Bull Kumite one day, and then lose to Dieminion to claim 8th place in a tournament a few months later.

Bonchan also sometimes struggled against Daigo, and he lost several times to Momochi causing several early tournament exits. Many of his hardest losses came from his fellow Japanese players; friends and rivals who knew his style all too well. But through it all, he was always a frightening opponent, because if you couldn't find a way in you literally couldn't hurt him.



While his early tournament days are fairly unknown and hard to find in the west, Bonchan did receive some attention during GodsGarden 2010 where he managed to take a game off Momochi. While he ultimately lost, it was his first top-8 finish.

Just three years later, Bonchan was killing everyone at Canada Cup, beating the likes of Kazunoko and Dakou and getting all the way to the grand finals before losing to Xiao Hai's insane Cammy. Bonchan and Xiao Hai would meet again several times over the next several years, and the results were always pretty spectacular.

Bonchan's first major win was, very fittingly, at a 2014 tournament in Thailand called Thaiger Uppercut, where Bonchan went on an absolute tear. In the last two matches he bodied both Xian and Itazan, dropping only a single game. In the final round of the final match, he did indeed win the tournament with a Tiger Uppercut. With this victory, Masato's reign as perennial runner-up was at an end.



Bonchan's Sagat was legendary, and he was known as the King of Sagat in Japan. This notoriety meant that people often prepared counterpicks specifically against Bonchan, and it meant that other top players were able to relentlessly practise against him and his style. To still be able to win in that environment, and to still win as often as he did, that is why his legacy as the greatest Sagat player of all time remains uncontested.

Unfortunately, only a single video exists of Bonchan playing Street Fighter 6, and in it he was just messing around with Juri for fun. I think it's safe to say his attention has been elsewhere, though that likely changed the very moment the insane prize pool was announced for Capcom Cup 2023.

After all, as I said at the start, he's one of the best players who hasn't won one... yet.


Highlights

One of Bonchan's big wins was the one with which he qualified for Capcom Cup that year: SoCal Regionals 2015. He had been counterpicked the entire tournament, having to fight through a gauntlet of anti-Sagat tech, and he even had to overcome Xiao Hai and his incredible Cammy who had previously prevented Bonchan from winning Canada Cup in 2013.

In the winner's finals match, Bonchan faced Kazunoko's Yun. Kazunoko was a Capcom Cup winner and the best rushdown player in the game, and he was playing as the strongest character in the game—and Bonchan won.

Kazunoko then swiftly 3-0'd his opponent in the loser's finals game and entered the grand finals, hungry for a rematch against THE KING OF MUAY THAI.



Bonchan vs Tokido was one of the best rivalries in Street Fighter history. They are friends and practise partners in real life, but whenever they met in tournaments they always played hard. This video starts off with Tokido—who was confidently going into grand finals from the winners side of the bracket—engaging in some "friendly" trash talk.

Maybe that's what made Bonchan fire on all cylinders. The resulting match became the stuff of legend: this match is one of my favourite ever grand finals, and one of the best Street Fighter sets of all time.

If you watch nothing else from this video, go to 15m30s. That, that, is why Bonchan is the goddamned king.



While Bonchan was mostly faithful to Sagat, sometimes he would come out with a surprise pick. He always had a hard time against Daigo's Evil Ryu, so for the Red Bull Kumite tournament he prepared a surprise for him.



A kind of shitty highlight video. Worth a watch if you can stand bad rap music.



I didn't watch Street Fighter 5 and I wasn't looking forward to looking for highlights from that period, but fortunately Red Bull Gaming created a spotlight video about Bonchan, specifically about a period in time where he was an incredibly dominant player. This is why he was ranked the 6th best player of that era.



And lastly, just for fun.

Sorry for bringing up painful memories, Bonchan, but you have to admit—it's part of your legacy!

Chris T Stub

Chris Tatarian has been representing Ken on behalf of every risky button masher for as long as I can remember. In Street Fighter IV he was a regular patron of Alex Valle's Wednesday Night Fights, which he usually won. Even if he didn't, he'd always go out in style.

Chris' play is flashy and fun, and he's incredibly skilled at opening people up. He's one of my favourite players, even though strong tournament results never really materialized.


Highlights

Phenomenal play against China's best Cammy, Xiao Hai.



Bonchan, the 6th best SF5 player ever, is a Sagat god. But Chris T ain't bad either.

Daigo Umehara Biography

Daigo is Evo Moment 37. Daigo is a 6 time EVO champion. Daigo is The Beast. He stars in books, he stars in a manga series, and a statuette was made in his honour.

He is the biggest and most legendary Street Fighter player the world has ever seen.

While most players have certain defining strengths, Daigo's abilities were all-encompassing. In many ways he is the perfect competitor, able to shine equally while applying or withstanding pressure. From performing highly technical combos as Evil Ryu in Street Fighter IV to shutting down the battlefield as Guile in Street Fighter V, Daigo may be the most well-rounded player to have ever lived—exemplified by his most regular character association, Ryu.

From his early domination in Street Fighter II to taking super-majors in Street Fighter V, Daigo's Ryu has been a thing of beauty. While Evo Moment 37 was done with Ken, Ryu is still the character most associated with Daigo's legacy. Ryu is Street Fighter's protagonist, and Daigo its ambassador, and they will forever be a perfect match.



In 2010, Daigo received the Guinness World Record for most Street Fighter tournament wins, an award which reflected his domination during the early days of Street Fighter IV where he won the 2009 and 2010 Evolution series back to back. Over the next few years, through his sponsorships and tournament winnings, Street Fighter became Daigo's full-time job.

Despite this recognition, Daigo notably entered fewer tournaments than many of his rivals and peers. While Justin Wong flew out to damn near every single tournament, Daigo would wait for the true super-majors, the events where everyone would be present. Even though he was always up against the toughest opposition in the world every single time he played, he was always considered one of the favourites to win.

To sum up Daigo's Street Fighter IV days, I offer this little time capsule:

In January of 2014, after years of Evolution results and multiple majors under his belt, Eventhubs called Daigo the #1 best player in the world. Arguably the two closest contenders for the throne were Xian and Infiltration, and Daigo defeated both of them in first-to-10 exhibition matches... with scores of 10-0 and 10-2. He was just on another level.



Despite more frequent tournament appearances, Daigo found big wins in Street Fighter V much harder to come by. After several successive wins in the first year of competition, he entered an enduring slump lasting almost a year, often exiting a tournament outside of the top 16.

This lack of success eventually made him switch away from Ryu, claiming him to have too many weaknesses to offer the kind of consistency he was looking for. Instead, Daigo began exclusively training with Guile. While I still insist that Du "NuckleDu" Dang is the best (and most fun) Guile player to have ever lived, it cannot be denied that this character switch would end up being a big success.

Daigo went from exiting Final Round 20 in 33rd place to winning Abuget Cup 2017 just a few months later, going 3-2 over fellow Japanese fighting god Go1. Daigo quickly followed it up with several tournament wins while his fellow competitors scrambled to find an answer to his impeccable Guile play.

Over the years, Daigo entered just about every tournament he could find, and he became one of the most common faces in any round-of-16. Whenever he won—like he did at VSFighting 2018—he looked like an immovable object. And whenever he lost, it was often to a top-3 contender.

Through decades of fighting game legacy, through ups and downs, despite side projects and an increased focus on his own media output, Daigo remains a persistent threat as one of the most legendary entrants of the Street Fighter circuit.



During the first Street Fighter 6 beta, Daigo was a notable absentee. His attention remained focused on Street Fighter V and various community efforts, resulting in a few amusing videos of Daigo talking to other pro players and repeatedly going "Wait you can do WHAT in SF6?"

But we do know he's been playing it, and although he hasn't confirmed his main character yet, everyone who played the beta agrees that Ryu is top tier in this game. I suspect we may soon get to see a long-awaited reunion.

Street Fighter is Daigo's job, and it's a job he wants to continue doing. That makes me happy, because Street Fighter would not be the same without him.



Highlights

When Daigo faced off against GamerBee at DreamHack Winter, the first round immediately went down in the annals of USF4 history. Whether GamerBee was truly rattled is hard to say, but after getting called out that hard it is only human to doubt.



At Stunfest 2015, fresh off his recent win at the second Topanga World League, Daigo went up against Ken player Momochi who had recently won the Capcom Cup and was currently on fire. Despite coming into the grand finals from losers bracket, Daigo had looked incredible the entire tournament, and the stage was set for an unforgettable set.

The resulting match is widely considered one of the best Daigo performances ever seen, and features his iconic quintuple-frame-perfect 25-hit combo in game 4 to reset the bracket. The video has over 1.5 million views on YouTube. The whole thing is worth a watch, but if you're just here for the combo, it's at 9:30.



A nice and simple highlight reel from 2018.



Daigo combos someone for 25 seconds.



The full video. You know the one.

Fuudo Biography

While he was living in a cupboard at his auntie's house, Keita Ai found solace in his little Playstation. His game of choice for several years was Virtua Fighter, becoming one of its top players for a few years before he picked up a little game called Street Fighter IV. He quite liked it.

After practising every day after din-din, he finally decided he was good enough to join his first big Street Fighter tournament! The tournament was called Evolution 2011.

And he won.

Fuudo won the first international Street Fighter tournament he ever joined, and it was Evolution 2011.

It's not just his look—he really was the chosen one.



While he never managed to take home any more super-major wins in Street Fighter IV, he almost always got top 4 at Capcom Cup, even during the reign of Tokido and Xian. He was a consistent threat, all the while remaining faithful to the character that brought him victory at Evolution: Fei Long.

His Fei Long is the stuff of legend. Fuudo's fundamentals and reactions makes him terrifying to play against, and Fei Long was a character who thrived in that environment. Look at the first highlight in the list below and just watch his punish game, and you'll see why he was considered such a strong player. Add to that his god-tier analytical mind and a deep understanding of the game, and Fuudo was always able to make great adjustments mid-game and make comebacks against players who seemed to have his number.

Fuudo found some success in Street Fighter 5 too, I guess. Stuff like being the 4th best player to have ever played the game and defeating Tokido 10-9 at Topanga 4. When you beat Tokido—arguably best player to have ever picked up a fightstick—and you do so in a first-to-10 format, you deserve to be forever considered a top contender for the throne.

What's interesting to me is that Fuudo's character choices have been a bit eclectic. Fei Long was a brutal god of punishes with a side of mix-ups, but in Street Fighter 5 he played R. Mika and Birdie (two very different grapplers), and Poison who is primarily a zoning character. I don't know if he would swap back to Fei Long if he were to show up as DLC, but I'm sure the community at large would nudge him quite selfishly but persistently in that direction.



Not much footage exists of Fuudo playing the Street Fighter 6 beta. He mostly stuck with Chun-Li, though I suspect in the end he will gravitate towards a more comfortable character for his playstyle. Jamie might be a possibility due to his scary corner pressure, but I would not be surprised to see Fuudo representing Lily for a while. A fast grappler with mix-up potential, well, that has Fuudo written all over it.


Highlights

During one of his myriad top-4 runs at Capcom Cup, Fuudo was matched up against the French player Alioune, a Cammy master who was notable for playing on a gamepad. Watch for Fuudo's reactions and punish game in this one.



Fuudo running into Poongko at Evolution created a fun game that came down to the wire.



Fuudo vs Latif in the grand finals of Evolution 2011. This is the tournament that shot Fuudo into the limelight.



I don't usually like adding losses to the highlight section (spoilers), but this game is the exception for three reasons: First, it was a brilliant nail-biter of a match. Second, it was against Tokido in his Street Fighter IV prime. Third, it was the grand finals of Capcom Cup 2015. This match is legendary.

GamerBee Biography

The Taiwanese god of Adon was the master of the ambiguous cross-up, a relentless opponent whose aggression would shatter the armour of even the best defensive players in the world. While his Jaguar Kicks were a menace, the real secret to his success lay in his mastery of spacing—spacing so good that it rivalled even that of Bonchan. His ability to pressure opponents from anywhere on the screen was downright scary, and for zoner characters like Guile there was no opponent more daunting.

He was also one of the first to recognize just how broken Elena was, and he quickly developed a pocket Elena to deal with some unfavourable match-ups. While Elena mains would eventually bring misery to the world of Street Fighter, GamerBee's pocket character did show the world one more thing: while GamerBee had always thrived in the rushdown mode of his Adon, his neutral game was truly fantastic.

While he never ended up winning a Street Fighter championship, few players have gotten so tantalizingly close so many times. And if his Chun-Li in Street Fighter 6 is anything to go by, he will remain a deadly threat in the time to come.



Bruce Hsiang caught everyone off guard at Evolution 2010 with his flashy and aggressive Adon, and after knocking Justin Wong out of the tournament he became an instant crowd favourite. No one had ever seen Adon played that well, and throughout the years that remained true: no one was ever better at the character than GamerBee.

But after his international debut at Evolution, GamerBee spent the next several years chasing that elusive tournament victory. Between events like CEO and ECT and DreamHack he became a constant presence in the round of 8, but despite several podium finishes he never quite found the gold. In fact, I can't recall any other player who suffered more heartbreaking losses in the grand finals than the fierce Adon player.

Despite his repeated grand final defeats a pattern soon emerged: no matter what, he would always take games off the greatest players in the world. Throughout various Evolution series he convincingly knocked out the likes of PR Balrog, Xiao Hai, Poongko, and NuckleDu, and in tier 1 tournaments across the world he demolished Evolution winner Luffy, crushed Mago under his heels, and even 3-0'd Infiltration back when his Akuma had reached world class status.

He was just never quite able to string together an entire tournament, to maintain the momentum after knocking a tournament favourite out of the bracket until he stood triumphant. The entirety of Street Fighter IV was, for GamerBee, one long enduring heartbreak. With each consecutive tournament my desire to see him finally getting his big win only intensified, but by the end of Street Fighter IV's lifespan I was left disappointed.

But throughout all of this, GamerBee remained crowd favourite player, always seen with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. Not a single person had anything bad to say about the god of Adon (cough, until he picked up Elena), and his opponents were always worried about the explosive potential he could bring to bear at any moment.



It was in Street Fighter V that it finally happened.

It was the first year of official competition. The Capcom Pro Tour was underway, and at the Tokyo Game Show a certain tournament was being held. The notable entrants list was a veritable who's who of high level players, with players like Bonchan, Nemo, MOV, Go1, Mago, Sako, and Kazunoko, plus a smattering of international entrants like K-Brad and Chris T... and GamerBee.

It was there—after four consecutive podium finishes that year—where Bruce fucking finally claimed his first super-major victory by winning the venerable Japan Cup. At the tournament GamerBee defeated Sako, crushed MOV, and finally smashed Poongko twice to claim the throne.

While I was one of the people who skipped town when Street Fighter V was released, I actually heard about this victory after it happened. That day? I think the smile on my face was a rival to his. I was genuinely so happy for him.

I would add the VOD to his highlight section, but it was a Japanese tournament and was therefore streamed in blurry 720p with peaking microphones. I still don't know why they're so goddamned incompetent at staging tournaments.


These days GamerBee spends a lot of his time chatting with his fans on Twitch. The old fan favourite often gets tens of thousands of views as people tune in to see him go to events and hang out with his friends in the fighting game scene. He doesn't practice Street Fighter as much any more, but all told I think he's having more fun than ever.

During the Street Fighter 6 beta, GamerBee was found sporting a seriously scary looking Chun-Li. I think it's a good pick for the spacing master, but we'll see if he sticks with her once the game is fully released.


Highlights

This is not a closely-contested match between two top players; this is GamerBee stepping on a fly. I'll add a closely contested match below, but you have to understand—this is what most of his games looked like.



The game that launched GamerBee into the spotlight was his match against Justin Wong at Evolution 2010, the first international tournament he ever entered. His pressure made Justin crack in the first game, making him throw out two raw ultras as attempted reads. Justin regained his composure after that, and despite the early setback he refused to make it an easy match.



I promised a closely-contested match between two players, and here it is: GamerBee vs Bonchan at Stunfest 2015. Sagat was a good matchup for Adon, but boy did Bonchan ever make him work for every single K.O.

Justin Wong Biography

In the history of fighting games, no other player in their prime has ever been as dominant as Justin Wong. Around the turn of the millennium, Justin won everything he entered to the point where even his own friends were rooting against him. He was always a top Street Fighter player, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is where he made his name, being the game where he won six of his nine Evolution championships.

And he is most famous for being on the receiving end of the Daigo Parry. The world can be a cruel place sometimes.

Justin's fantastic neutral game combined with his characteristic patience created a methodical and often slow playstyle, and he was happy to lame you out if he felt that his defence was stronger than your offence. This patience extended even to games where he was at a massive life and meter deficit, where rather than trying to force the issue, he was happy to sit back and calmly search for opportunities. As he always said: "Unless there's only 10 seconds left on the clock, you have all the time in the world to make a comeback."

This mindset helped create The Wong Factor, a phenomenon where Justin—more than any other competitive player—would produce insane comebacks from near-impossible positions. The magic pixel was his playground.

Justin has used his legacy as a springboard for popularity, and he is currently one of the most popular content creators in the FGC. But unlike almost every other big player-turned-content creator, Justin still enters tournaments sometimes—and he still takes them seriously. He is one of my all time favourite players.

Just a shame he played Rufus, really.



Justin got his feet wet in the NYC arcades, and by the end of the '90s he was a top East Coast player known for being good at every fighting game at the time. While he had some decent wins under his belt, it was really the turn of the millennium that saw Justin Wong go from East Coast menace to national god. That was the year Marvel vs. Capcom 2 came out, and the year Justin decided to become the best.

And he just was.

It's hard for most of us to understand the level of dominance shown by Justin Wong during this period. If you weren't around to see it, all you can really do is look at his tournament records; his shiny sea of gold. He won titles in practically every major fighting game, and always seemed able to learn a new game faster than anyone else.

This ability persists to this day, as Justin was the top player in both Killer Instinct (2013) and Samurai Shodown (2019) for the first year of their release. He is one of only four players ever to reach top 8 at Evolution in both Street Fighter and Tekken.



While Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was always Justin's baby, he was also one of the best Street Fighter players in the world. He ended up on the Evolution podium five times across three different Street Fighter titles, including a win in 2009 for the 2v2 tournament in 3rd Strike.

Over the years, Justin has taken big tournament wins over some of the tournament circuit's biggest killers, including Momochi, NuckleDu, PR Balrog, Snake Eyez, Problem X, and GamerBee. He also repeatedly encountered Ricki Ortiz, "The Other Rufus player" and soon-to-be Chun-Li master. Ricki traded blows with Justin, losing at SCR 2011 and winning at ECT 2012.

However, his storied rivalry with Daigo may be his most enduring Street Fighter legacy. The two had never fought until that fateful day in 2004, where the deafening roar of the crowd signalled a return of fighting games into greater prominence. In the years to come, the two would meet again and again, each clash becoming an immediate classic.



As Justin moved to Street Fighter IV he gravitated to Rufus, a decision some would describe as why? But Justin made it work; he won several super-majors while exclusively playing Rufus, though by the time AE 2012 came out he also had several counterpicks in his pocket.

His aggressive and fun Rufus was soon complemented by an incredibly solid Rose, an amazing zoning character with a dangerous walk-in ultra. Only the French player Luffy had a better Rose, but Justin improved his all the time. After the final batch of DLC characters was launched during Ultra Street Fighter IV, Justin picked up Elena, first as a counterpick and then as a primary character, thus solidifying his status as a terrible human being.

Although Justin never won another Evolution or a Capcom Cup, he was always an exciting opponent and a major threat. Near the end of the Street Fighter IV era, Justin entered Defend The North 2015, a tournament filled with every major American killer, and as the tournament came to a close he stood on top. Thus, Justin ended his Street Fighter IV career the same way it began: as the strongest American player.



Justin has been vocally excited for Street Fighter 6, and when Evolution announced that their games lineup for 2023 included both SF6 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Justin immediately signed up for both.

It's hard to say if Justin will put in the kind of practise for SF6 as he did for previous titles, especially since he's primarily a content creator now... but if he does, I have absolutely zero doubt that Justin Wong will end up with more gold-coloured rows on his Liquipedia page.


Highlights

This is a 15-minute mini-documentary about Justin Wong. It's good, go watch it.



Justin and Daigo have battled many, many times over their careers, and every single time they have produced some fantastic games. This one started off badly for Justin, with Daigo quickly establishing complete control over the old, washed-up veteran. Justin, however, does not get nervous when behind, and he will claw his way back into the game if you relent even an inch of ground. The Wong Factor is real, folks.



At the very, very start of Street Fighter 4, Daigo had been practising in the arcades. Justin took advantage with an unusual Fei Long pick—a character exclusive to consoles at that time, one that Daigo had not practised against. Justin's ability to play most of the roster is impressive enough, but here he makes Fei Long look amazing.



Justin had a long-standing friendly rivalry with Sanford Kelly. In a showmatch at Northeast Championships 14, Sanford defeated PR Balrog in a first-to-five exhibition. Instead of basking in the glory, Sanford stood up and pointed straight at Justin Wong.

Justin obliged.



Justin teaches a young child about the real world.

PR Balrog Biography

From Ultra Street Fighter IV to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the insane reads and reactions of Eduardo Pérez has turned him into one of the most exciting players of all time. Throughout his career, the Puerto Rican-American made a point of using exciting and hard-hitting characters—Balrog in Street Fighter, Wolverine/Doom/Vergil in UMvC3, and the rushdown monster Orchid in Killer Instinct.

Eduardo is an unpredictable monster. He will swap between relentless offence and patient defence at the drop of a hat, a switch which causes his opponents to crack under pressure. He's also known for taking wild risks which he backs up with fantastic execution, a trait which—on a good day—makes him able to take down absolutely anyone.

While he lacks the vast array of super-major victories that would elevate him to the status of all-time great, PR Balrog has an astonishing amount of convincing wins over some of the best players to have ever lived. Infiltration, Nemo, Tokido, Fuudo, Daigo—all have been knocked out of tournaments at the hands of the Balrog monster, not to mention the slew of bodies of his US compatriots at his feet.

For his character choices and on-stage presence, PR Balrog has always been a crowd favourite, and he always seems to perform the best with the roar of a hype crowd at his back.



While Street Fighter IV wasn't the first game PR Balrog competed in, it was game for which he received widespread attention. His first ever major tournament was Evolution 2009, and despite his lack of tournament experience he ended up claiming 5th overall with his now-famous aggressive Balrog play. With his Californian friends and rivals at his side and the chanting of new fans at his back, PR Balrog had arrived.

Eduardo's first big win happened just two years later, at the US major Final Round XIV. The bracket was a slew of 2-0s and 3-0s against some of the best players the US had to offer, and Eduardo ended up in grand finals against the undisputed GOAT Tokido. There PR Balrog ended up beating Tokido's Akuma, a character who would end up giving PR Rog a lot of problems in the years to come.



Indeed, PR Rog's tournament runs would frequently get cut short by good Akuma and Evil Ryu players. Balrog had certain weaknesses, and as a character loyalist Eduardo was—while certainly not easy to punish—at a disadvantage, forced to play bad matchups for most of his career. In fact, some of Balrog's worst matchups were all-too-commonly represented, especially amongst the Japanese gods.

This reality eventually led Eduardo to pick up an Evil Ryu of his own. While the crowd would sometimes whine at the sight of the perennial Balrog loyalist swapping to his pocket character, Evil Ryu was an absolutely perfect pick for the aggressive, hard-hitting Pérez.

Because with these two characters under his belt, PR Balrog soon turned 2014 into a year to remember.



In January of 2014, Eventhubs crowned PR Balrog the 10th best player in SSF4:AE, citing years of strong Evo performances and tournament results. And the year had only just started.

Before the end of April, PR Balrog managed to take 2nd place at both Final Round XVII and Texas Showdown 2014, beating several of the top players and ending up just shy of taking the big win. And by the end of April, Eduardo finally claimed his first super-major when he defeated Infiltration at NorCal Regionals 2014 with final score of 6-1, something nobody else accomplished around that time.

With this win, Eduardo claimed a spot at Capcom Cup 2014, an insanely stacked tournament with some of the strongest killers ever to have existed. It was here that he defeated the Blanka god Nishikin 2-0, and Japanese god Daigo 2-1, knocking the latter out of the tournament with the most godly-timed Red Focus attack I have ever seen in my entire life.

Eduardo eventually ended up claiming 5th place at the most stacked event of the year, and while I'm always sad to see him exit a tournament, I was grinning from ear to ear the entire time he was playing.

I love this guy.



Sadly, PR Balrog never found a lot of success in Street Fighter V. His favourite character Balrog was absent for much of the games' early life, and he spent his time bouncing between Vega, Laura, and Necalli. While he did pull out the occasional top-8 finish in larger tournaments (especially once Balrog arrived as a DLC character), Eduardo ultimately played less and less as time went on. Once Covid hit, he stopped entering SFV for good.

Truthfully, I don't know if he'll ever pick up Street Fighter 6. I wrote this biography not out of expectation, but out of hope. Over the years, PR Balrog has been one of my favourite players to watch, a powerhouse fighter both in Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom. When Marvel was announced for Evo 2023, PR Balrog announced his intent to enter—"one last time", he said.

Personally, I hope his last ride turns into a homecoming tour.


Highlights

PR Balrog often encountered Infiltration in the top 8 bracket, and the latter often came out ahead. Akuma was always a disadvantaged matchup for Balrog, and Infil's was one of the best in the business. Eduardo never made it easy, however.



Eduardo remained a fantastic player all the way through USF4's lifespan. Here he is going up against Mago, the best Yang player in the world who was fresh off a convincing tournament win against Tokido.

You know, sometimes... sometimes PR Rog's reactions were Fuudo-levels of absolute bullshit.



If you're in the mood for a longer VOD, try this one:

At the NorCal Regionals 2014, Infiltration advanced into grand finals from the winners bracket having hardly dropped a round the entire tournament. PR Balrog's run wasn't as dominant, but precisely because of that it was a lot more exciting. After clutching several games and taking some big wins over Alex Valle and K-Brad, it became clear that PR Balrog was on an unusually spectacular run. When he advanced into the grand finals by beating Justin Wong in the losers finals, the NorCal crowd were on their feet ready to cheer for the underdog.

And fuck me did Eduardo ever bring the hype.



In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Chris G was always an infuriating opponent to deal with as he had by far the best Morrigan in the business. The zoning goddess is a menace; you can open her up with incredibly solid aggressive play, but it's so damn hard to do. Even Justin Wong struggled to do so reliably with his Wolverine, famously making him change his face character to Storm at Evo 2014 just for Chris G.

PR Balrog, though?


Please come back, Eduardo. You were just too good to retire.

Problem X Biography

People named Benjamin Simon are destined to become middle management of a W & G Foyle in Birmingham. They are not destined to become Evolution champion. And yet, with his teleporting M. Bison and flagrant disregard for nominative determinism, Problem X defeated the all-time GOAT Tokido to become just that.

Problem X was a top 10 player in Street Fighter V, a true powerhouse of a player who created so much tension just from the threat of his execution. He could quickly switch between relentlessly pressuring you in the corner, to quietly walking back and just standing still in order to make you flinch. And when you did, he had the reactions to follow through.

This man presents a problem for other players: they have to come to terms with the fact that the red Bison who facestomped them into oblivion is an Englishman with two first names.

And I liked him before it was cool.



Back before Problem X was anybody, he was an often-featured part of Unequalled Media, a weekly streaming outlet through which international audiences could watch the best players from around London. Tyrant, Damscus, RMZ, F-Word, Pro Fluke, Andreas, Emersion, Infexious, Big Fool—these are names who have been around for a long time now, always representing the UK scene and always playing catch-up to Ryan Hart's skill and legacy.

One particular Norwegian fan always liked watching Unequalled Media during those early days, partly because the UK players and casters were fun, and partly because they were in a watchable time zone. I took notice of them around 2012 when they started running bigger tournaments like the UK Championships in SSF4:AE. Over time they increased their exposure and notoriety, and soon they were able to cover Capcom Pro Tour events.

Out of all of them, one player always stood out to me — a flashy and fun C. Viper player with a good Seth secondary. I once called Problem X "one of the best C. Viper players in the world" at a time when that really wasn't true. I guess you could say I was a fan.



Between 2011 and 2015, Problem X entered a decent number of European tournaments — with mixed success. While he was one of the best players locally, he wasn't able to break through on an international level, which means that a lot of his tournament results ended up looking like this. His only big victory happened at DreamHack London 2015, with good wins over former Evolution champion Luffy as well as the French Chun-Li player Valmaster.

And then Street Fighter V came along.

With his freshly minted M. Bison at his fingertips, Problem X smashed Luffy at the 2016 Hypespotting 5 tournament, then Big Bird at Sonic Boom IV, and thus the floodgates were open. Problem X was officially an international player, and with MOUZ as his sponsor he travelled the world to compete at Street Fighter.

During the Year of Our Lord Please Get The Big Vroom Vroom Dude Off Me he briefly swapped to Abigail to capitalize on the broken new character, winning several tournaments with a character and playstyle that was new to him. He even picked up Balrog during this time, because his Bison just wasn't oppressive enough. With these characters under his belt Problem X cruised to victory at Evolution, cementing his legacy as a tier whore for all time.




Highlights

Problem X often ran into Ryan Hart. This particular encounter happened at DreamHack Summer 2014 and really showcases Simon's tech skill. If you know C. Viper, you know how hard some of those training room combos are.



Problem X played a lot during the Street Fighter 6 beta, including a number of FT7 exhibition matches. This was one of them, resulting in a very long VOD where Problem X took Big Bird to the absolute final round of the final set.



I always add Street Fighter V videos under protest! But when you win Evolution, I guess I have to.

NuckleDu Biography

Capcom Cup champion, king of Combo Breaker, and Wearer of Sunglasses, Du "NuckleDu" Dang is the flashiest Guile player in the world. He would enter a tournament with a slight smile and a certain nervous energy, and then somehow walk people down while using the most defensive character in the roster. Most Guile players just weathered the inevitable corner pressure. Du shoved back. And then he taunted, because he could.

Damn, I love this guy.

Du Dang's addition to the Team Liquid roster was a happy accident. In the Street Fighter IV days, NuckleDu was a rising player on Team Curse. Though he had not yet made his mark on the FGC, there were murmurs of a very aggressive Guile who was starting to look a lot like Dieminion.

And then, when Curse and Liquid merged in 2015, Du suddenly found himself sporting the white and blue livery that would be his attire for the next three years. The rest is history: Du became the uncontested best Guile player in the world, taunted his way to victory, won Capcom Cup, became the 5th best player ever in Street Fighter 5, and went home to be a family man.

Not bad for someone who just... showed up one day.



But it took some time to make it all work.

While Du was always fun to watch, his first few tournament runs almost always saw him retire early. Part of the problem was C. Viper, a crazy technical character who was very popular during the early years of Street Fighter IV. She was a high-mobility mix-up character who had few difficulties jumping in on a zoning Guile player. Du lost games to Latif, and lost hard against C. Viper legend Wolfkrone, exiting Final Round XVI with hardly any prize money.

But shortly after donning the white-and-blue Liquid jersey, things... changed.

His first win came just one month later, at Apex 2015. While it was a minor tournament in terms of prestige, Du had to run through a gauntlet of some high-level US players at the time. The grand final match with Snake Eyez still holds up as a good game today, and the Liquid community rejoiced! From that initial win the NuckleDu train began to gather momentum.

It smashed straight through Combo Breaker, a tournament Du would not lose for the rest of his Street Fighter IV career. Now he wasn't just beating Snake Eyez: he was beating FGC legend Justin Wong, Chun-Li goddess Ricki Ortiz, and finally—at Combo Breaker 2016—he beat Wolfkrone's C. Viper that had given him so much trouble two years prior.

And then he switched to Street Fighter V and won a little tournament called Capcom Cup.





Full disclosure: I never played or watched Street Fighter V, so I am not fully qualified to give the following statement. However, after doing extensive research in preparation for this thread—and knowing what I now know of Street Fighter V and its core mechanics—I think NuckleDu's 2016 run was nothing short of spectacular.

Almost every single player used a rushdown character. Almost every single player had a grappler. Because of the crazy new mechanics, and because of rushdown characters and grapplers being the flavour of the day, the tournament was a wildfire of upsets and chaos. Daigo exited in 16th place. Xian went out in 12th. First seed player Infiltration went out in 32nd place. Guile was so outmatched in this meta that NuckleDu picked up an R. Mika of his own in order to weather the storm.

And NuckleDu was never even pushed to game 5 during the entire event.

Seriously, do you have any idea how hard that was?

After besting Ricki Ortiz in the grand finals with a final score of 6-2, NuckleDu became the pride of Team Liquid and the first American to win the championship in 14 years.



While he would never again take a Capcom Cup, NuckleDu's tournament page is almost as impressive as Tokido's. The man was an absolute beast.

Du would sadly hang up his knuckles (ew I really regret writing that) after his nasty 2020 car crash. While he would occasionally show up to play, it was pretty clear that for him the long grind was over.

But what a grind. By the time he retired he had won 14 majors and 5 super-majors and went down as the 5th best player of all time. He remains one of my favourite ever players, and I always hoped that he would one day feel the desire to compete again, to feel the drive he once did when he was losing those games to C. Viper back in 2013.

So when Du entered a Street Fighter 6 beta tournament, you'd better believe that the author of this text stayed up to watch the whole thing. And if Du reignites his love for Street Fighter with the upcoming title, there will be plenty more sleepless nights in my future.


Highlights

NuckleDu gets in your head and stays there. This is the most shit-eating highlight video of the Street Fighter IV era.



One of Du's most characteristic games is his match against Harry Potter himself, Fuudo. Fei Long has amazing normals and his rekkas practically guarantee a corner push, and it's very hard for Guile to get out of it. NuckleDu's impeccable defence in that position is impressive enough, but Du further made Guile's normals look completely busted and ended the match with one of the biggest call-outs in FGC history.



Tokido is the greatest Street Fighter 5 player of all time, and usually won when he fought Du. Usually.

Snake Eyez Biography

Zangief mains always had a major hurdle to overcome: bad matchups. Gief needs to be right up close to pose a threat with his command grabs, and projectile spammers make it so difficult for Zangief to get in. Sagat vs Zangief was considered a 7-3 match, and when you regularly encounter Bonchan in tournaments, that's going to be a problem.

In the end, you need to level up a pocket character to deal with projectile spammers. Right Snake Eyez?



...Jesus.

Darryl Lewis is the only player in history to win premier tournaments with Zangief, and he did so across three different games. He defeated Xian 6-2 at The Fall Classic 2014 in Street Fighter IV, took down Punk 3-2 at CEO 2017 in Street Fighter V, and he is the reigning Evolution champion in Super Turbo after beating Tokido, Daigo, and DGV.

Sporting his Mad Catz gamepad and Red Bull cap, Snake Eyez plays Zangief like a brawler. He knows better than anyone that people are terrified of getting grabbed, and he plays and preys on that fear like a master. He patiently dismantles their defences, and then once he's in—and he always gets in—he starts to dismantle their mental health too.

Snake Eyez has such a strong grasp of Zangief's options and when to use them. His close-quarters mixup is truly a mixup, and he doesn't just go for an unsafe SPD. His game is a world of jabs and shorts, frame traps and blockstrings which make the opponent afraid to push buttons, and then he'll SPD three times in a row. To play Zangief is to read your opponent, and Darryl is so damn good at it.

He is simply put the best Zangief player in the world.



Snake Eyez did play in the Street Fighter 6 beta, but as Zangief had not been revealed yet he stuck to practising Ryu.
He looked very good—small wonder as he played shotos at a high level in previous games—but his fans naturally wanted to know what Zangief looked like.

As soon as the Gief reveal hit the streets, Mike Ross congratulated Snake Eyez on his 1 million dollars. That was only partly in jest, because if grapplers are finally high tier for the first time in decades, Snake Eyez will come out of the gate spinning.


Highlights

A quick and simple highlight montage of some of Darryl's best moments.



Snake Eyez and Xian met several times in tournaments, but possibly their most memorable encounter happened at Evo. This is not an explosive, high-flying game; this is a game of footsies between two masters at the craft. Any other Zangief player would snap in that position, but Darryl is happy to play it cool, calm, and collected.



Zangief vs Guile is a bad match-up. Guile's normals are so much stronger than Gief's, and his zoning projectile is one of the best in the game. In this kind of game, you have to make every opportunity count.

Round 3. Fight.



At SCR 2014, the Wednesday Night Fights crew—Snake Eyez, Chris T, Marq Teddy, Keno, and Filipinoman—faced off against NorCal's best in a 5v5 team match. And they lost, hard. The WNF players failed to take a single game, all of them looking lost against the likes of Ricki Ortiz and the always-godly PR Balrog.

The score was 0-4 by the time Snake Eyez sat down to play, the last hope of the WNF crew.

Guile's Theme goes with everything.




I still add Street Fighter V games under protest, but this was the only tier 1 tournament won by a Zangief in SF5 so it would be a shame not to include it really.

Tokido Biography

Daigo's legacy is the only thing that has prevented Tokido from being called the best Street Fighter player of all time, but those in the know know the truth: there has never been a better player.

For a long time, Tokido competed at the top level in every fighting game under the sun, becoming an Evo champion in Capcom vs. SNK and Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and claiming the title of the best King of Fighters XIII player of the 2010s. In Street Fighter IV he was "only" considered a minor god, a top contender who was destined to win a lot of the tournaments he entered—which he frequently did.

Then Street Fighter V was launched, and Tokido dropped everything else to become the best.

He was.

Tokido is synonymous with the Akuma Vortex, an overpowering wake-up mix-up game that forces opponents to constantly react to Akuma's myriad options after knocking an opponent down. Akuma's vortex is one of the strongest in the series, and Tokido was better at it than anyone else on the planet. It was this style that made him so terrifying, and between 2018 and 2020 there was not a player on earth who was favoured against him.

Now he has turned his famous glare towards Street Fighter 6 and the million dollar grand prize and as of writing there is perhaps no player on earth more likely to claim it.



If I were to talk in-depth about Tokido's early career, this biography would be bigger than the rest of the page. Suffice to say that he has competed in almost everything at a top level, and whenever Evo came around he was a serious contender for the crown in half of the main list of games. He is one of only four players ever to have achieved top 8 at Evolution in both Street Fighter and Tekken.

Still, it was in the Capcom games where he truly excelled, winning Evolution for Capcom vs. SNK in 2002 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo in 2007. His results page is—and always has been—a sea of bronze and silver and gold across every main Street Fighter title.

When Street Fighter IV came around, Tokido asked his friend and rival Daigo which character he should play, and Daigo flat out told him to choose Akuma. Daigo knew that Akuma was good, and he knew that Tokido would be able to learn and use all of his amazing tools, but he would have had no idea how much of a positive mark his advice would leave on Tokido's legacy.

I'll cut straight to the chase: Click this video and watch the 20 seconds following the timestamp.


It was a match made in heaven. Tokido and Akuma coalesced into an overpowering in-game presence, an insurmountible combination. His mind games are terrifying, his neutral game is stellar, and he somehow always finds a Raging Demon even when it should be damn near impossible to land. It's a character that has served him well throughout his career.



But in Street Fighter IV, his life was initially a little challenging.

Tokido's drive to compete across a variety of games generally meant that while he was considered a top player in SF4, he was never considered the best. His tournament wins were exclusively tier 2 or tier 3 tournaments, and while he often took games from the top players he would never bring home an Evolution or Capcom Cup title.

His best wins were probably at Shadowloo Showdown 2013 and at Canada Cup 2015. Shadowloo had a large number of international players playing, including Xian fresh off his Evolution win (where he beat Tokido to take the crown) as well as Luffy who would one day become an Evolution champion. Canada Cup attracted a large amount of Japanese players due to the tournament's status and large prize pool, but even with Snake Eyez and Momochi and Itabashi Zangief and GamerBee and Fuudo in contention, Tokido rose to the top.

Still, most of the time Tokido simply ended up in the top 4, falling just short of greatness.

Until Street Fighter 5.




Despite the fact that he was forced to swap to Ryu because Akuma would not show up for another year, he found immediate tournament success. With a number of 2nd place finishes in 2015, and with Infiltration often being the only player who could keep Tokido in check, Tokido dropped all other games in order to focus entirely on Street Fighter 5 and its ever-increasing prize pools.

Pretty soon, he started winning—and he won a lot.

I'm just going to link his list of wins again here, because very, very few competitors in history can claim such dominance over a franchise. He was not just the favourite to win—Tokido losing a best-of-3 in a tournament was often considered an upset.

His eventual third Evolution trophy seemed a formality, an obvious eventuality. It happened in 2017. After going on a tear in the losers bracket, he squared off against Punk in the grand finals where he ended up winning 6-1.

At the turn of the new decade, Tokido was crowned the uncontested best Street Fighter V player in the world, to the objection of no sentient being.



Yet despite his streak of dominance, and despite winning essentially every other tournament series at one point or another, Tokido has never actually won the Capcom Cup. Something always got in the way—often something weird. Tokido is the best Street Fighter player to have ever lived, and probably the best overall fighting game player despite his recent franchise exclusivity, but that final title has remained elusive.

I can't say for sure how hard he'll train for Capcom Cup 2023, but that million dollar grand prize must be very enticing, especially to a player like Tokido. Of course, that 2 million dollar prize pool means that all the other players in the world are about to take this shit very seriously...

...but they will all have to face the murderous glare of Tokido, and I suspect they all will wither.


Highlights

The Beast is but a minor obstacle.



Fighting from losers side against Infiltration? Better warm up the parry button.



This is not a good game. This is not two great players going at it in a closely contested match. This is a Tokido showmatch, displaying how much better he was than other high-level players.



A look back.

Xian Biography

Kun Xian Ho practically burst into the western FGC limelight in 2012 after the release of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. While he had been playing for years at that point, he had barely entered any big tournaments until Canada Cup of that year. He entered an unknown, and came out as the champion with big wins over Fuudo and Mago. More excitingly, he played Gen, a totally under-represented (and borderline unrepresented) character.

For the next few years, the Singaporean would travel across the globe to compete, often accompanied by caster and commentator Zhi as part of the now-defunct Tough Cookie TV. In that time he racked up wins against every other noteworthy player and placed high at every tournament series worth mentioning. After his dominating performance at Evolution 2013 where he defeated Tokido 3-0 in the grand finals, it was clear that his Gen was here to stay.

Xian is a mix-up specialist and a masterful technical player who always finds himself drawn to unusual characters. When he swapped to Street Fighter 5, he sported a maddening Ibuki style (we don't talk about the F.A.N.G. era) and used her to claim several super-majors over the years. In the Street Fighter 6 beta he was rocking Jamie, though towards the end of the beta he professed a deeper interest in Kimberly. That... makes a lot of sense.

If you want insane mix-ups and incredible execution, Xian should be your absolute first stop.



Okay, for dramatic purposes I may have exaggerated his sudden arrival. Before his big win at Canada Cup 2012, Xian had been competing in SEA tournaments for years. His first international appearance was in Sweden, when he claimed second place at DreamHack 2009 below Ryan Hart, but nobody else entered that tournament.

Still, the western world was definitely caught by surprise when Xian just appeared one day in 2012 to win his first major tournament, and this wasn't just a tier 3 event—tons of killers had entered Canada Cup including Bonchan, Justin Wong, and Kazunoko.

He repeated the feat (against most of the same players) at CEO 2013, and again at Evolution 2013 where he was crowned the undisputed champion. What a hell of a run for Xian, and what a payoff after all the years spend mastering such a challenging and technical character.

In Gen, Xian had found something akin to a soulmate. Xian's insane mix-up game was complemented by Gen's excellent normals, and Xian's spacing was inhuman. He would suddenly stance-change in the middle of the screen and jump way further than expected (usually after perfectly reading an opponent's fireball), and the resulting damage was just disgusting. He mastered the art of knockdown cross-ups using Gen's multiple wall jumps, to the point where people eventually had to stop quick-rising against Xian or they would just get blown up.

Xian continued to main Gen, and over the years he claimed several super-major wins. In spite of his overall success, he never quite managed to take the Capcom Cup, ending up with a silver medal two years in a row. Still, his success continued right up until the end of the game's lifespan—and, quite fittingly for Xian, ended with a win at DreamHack 2015, the very tournament he started with in 2009.



When Street Fighter V came around and with no Gen on the horizon, Xian bid farewell to the stance-change character who had served him so well—and promptly fell in with some bad company.

Yeah, we don't like to talk about the F.A.N.G. era.

For the first year of competition, and despite his skills as a player, Xian was often knocked out before the round of 8. As summer turned to autumn the problem got worse — he went out in 16th place at the tier-2 tournament Brooklyn Beatdown (losing to a player who has a single line on Liquipedia), and got 6th place at an esports festival in Hong Kong (losing to a player who does not even have an entry on Liquipedia). Xian entered Capcom Cup as the 13th seed and barely made top 12.

And then Xian found Ibuki and immediately won a super-major, spanking everyone 2-0 or 2-1 for the entire tournament without dropping a single match. Fucking hell, man, what took you so long?



With Ibuki under his wing, Xian managed to claim twice as many wins in Street Fighter V than he did during his Street Fighter IV days. Although he has yet to win another Evolution and the Capcom Cup still eludes him, Xian's mastery of some of the hardest characters makes him a terrifying threat. When PG released their top SF5 players list, Xian was number 11.

Xian played a few games during the Street Fighter 6 beta, where he was trying out Jamie. That makes sense for someone who wants a challenging and technical character, and in Xian's hands I'm sure Jamie will be nerfed within a year, but I do wonder—in my most depraved dreams—what he would do with a character like Kimberly...


Highlights

A really fun Xian highlight montage from those halcyon days in Street Fighter IV.



Xian demolishes Tokido, the uncontested best Akuma of all time.



Xian demolishes Fuudo, the uncontested best Lei Fong of all time.



Xian demolishes Poongko, the uncontested best Seth of all time.



I add Street Fighter 5 games under protest. But this one's pretty good.

      • 801 Strider, a fantastic Abel player in SF4 and a beast with many characters in SF5.
      • Alex Myers, a strong Sakura and Evil Ryu player from SF4 who had a scary Chun-Li in the SF6 beta.
      • iDom, a young SFV player who won Capcom Cup due to his insanely strong neutral game.
      • JB, a flashy American Rashid player in SF5 who's been rocking Jamie in the SF6 beta.
      • K-Brad, one of the best Street Fighter IV players from the US with a legendary Cammy.
      • Nephew, a SF6 tournament winner who needs to be purged before he makes more cringy TikTok videos.
      • Punk, the patient monster who became the strongest modern American player.
      • Vagabond, a solid Ryu player who dismantled some good players during the SF6 beta
      • Valmaster, a French character loyalist widely considered to have the best Chun-Li in the world.

Punk vs iDom at Intel PAX East 2023

Possibly my favourite set from the tournament, this was Punk's Luke vs iDom's Juri going head-to-head in a hotly contested match which came down to the wire. Made even better by the casting of James Chen and Vicious. Recommended.



Punk vs Nephew at Intel PAX East 2023

The grand finals ended up being Punk against another Juri, this time the American prodigy Nephew who was fighting his way through the loser's bracket. Nephew needed a bracket reset, and Punk just needed to close it out.



Additional matches from Intel PAX East 2023

There were more games I liked, but annoyingly all of the best ones had a Juri in them. iDom vs Nephew had two, but it was still good. The other best game was probably Nephew vs JB, because JB's Jamie looked really solid and the game came down to the wire.

To see the rest of the tournament, visit the YouTube playlist.

---

Below are a few replays from the open beta, though the level of gameplay isn't as high as from the Intel PAX East tournament because people had only been playing the game for a few days at the time these were recorded.


Problem X (Ryu) vs Big Bird (Ken)
The exhibition match (see the VOD Archive) is not the only time Problem X and Big Bird met.


Fujimura (Juri) vs Darlin (Ryu)
Fujimura's Juri looks fantastic, but getting opened up by Ryu hurts.


Imstilldadaddy (Guile) vs Solidjin (Jamie)
The two top ranked players in the SF6 beta trade wins in some really excellent matches.


Tokido (Ryu) vs Viridian (Ken)
Murderface himself displays some fantastic fundamentals against a button-happy but strong Ken player.


Tokido (Ryu) vs Yossam (Juri)
Shoto king Tokido squares off against a clever and technical Juri player from Japan.


Punk (Chun-Li) vs Diaphone (Kimberly)
Everybody knows Punk, but here his Chun-Li is tested against an incredibly solid Kimberly.


SonixFox (Juri) vs Wolfgang (Luke)
A really great back-and-forth set where you can see SonicFox adapting to a difficult matchup.


iDom (Juri) vs Problem X (Ryu)
136k views and counting, this video is a slugfest that makes the drive gauge look really fun.

Punk's Beta Bash
October 8, 2022 | Tier: 3 (casual, one-day) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

SF6Beta EMEA Saltmine Tournament
October 8, 2022 | Tier: 3 (casual, one-day) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

Street Fighter 6 Beta Bash, aka Street Fighter 6 Beta Beatdown
December ~18, 2022 | Tier: 3 (casual, one-day) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

Tampa Never Sleeps: TNS Street Fighter 6 Beta
December 18, 2022 | Tier: 3 (casual, one-day) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

Can Opener Series
December 19, 2022 | Tier: 3 (casual, one-day) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

Intel PAX East Street Fighter 6 Invitational Tournament
March 23 - 26, 2023 | Tier: 2 (Offline invitational) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

Tampa Never Sleeps: TNS Street Fighter 6 Beta Tournament #2
May 21, 2023 | Tier: 3 (casual) | + Show Spoiler [Show tournament] +

END OF ARCHIVE

Reversal's FT7 Series
October 9, 2022 | + Show Spoiler [Show event] +

Bonchan (Luke) vs Daigo (Guile)
March 23, 2023 | + Show Spoiler [Show event] +

Team Liquid Fighting Games Thread
      http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/games/476342-fighting-games-2015
      Team Liquid's old hub for FGC content, apparently no longer updated.

WIP/TBA

Four guys walking to an arcade becomes one of the most famous clips in the FGC. Sanford Kelly keeps it real. Unironically a great moment in time, accidentally beautifully shot.



IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE



While casting, Yipes does a godlike K-Brad impression.



WOLFKRONE, WHAT ARE YOU STANDING UP FOR?



WOSHIGE, NO! WHAT ARE YOU STANDING UP FOR?



Woolie explains his gameplan vs Daigo Umehara.



♫ Somebody's getting fuuuuuuucked ♫



Hayao's song about Daigo.



CEO's wrestling entrances were a riot, but the undisputed king of them all was K-Brad with his Stone Cold entrance.



Poongko was known for taking off his shirt during tournaments. Onisan had no hope against the Korean God of Seth, so he did the next best thing: beat Poongko at his own game. Briefly.



TwistedJago was not a great player. But he didn't have to be. He just needed to be great for a single moment in time.



This match from DreamHack Winter 2013 pools became the most viewed game of the tournament, even more than the Daigo vs GamerBee grand finals. Gandhi proves that footsies is for people who don't have a dragon punch.



At Arcade Infinity, Sagat player Ironfist proves that footsies is for people who are not the King of Muay Thai. Shame about the peanut gallery, but still fun.



Marn is about to perfect Joon B at NorCal Regionals. Then he taunts.



Mike Ross gets bodied by James Chen.



Blanka makes pound cake.

The Strongest Tag Team in Fighting Game History

In this translated mini-documentary, Nuki and Daigo team up in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike for the SBO 2005 tag team tournament. It's an uplifting tale of jesus christ Daigo why did you think that beanie was a good idea.



I don't have a 90's category on this page, so I'll have to put this video here.